Yang stood and stared, almost in awe, at the bloody remains of a grimm that had been violently murdered. Even though she hunted these creatures on a daily basis, this felt like a murder, rather than a real battle or a fight for self defence – it looked like it never stood a chance.
She surveyed her surroundings further. The forest was mostly quiet, as if this brutal scene had scared everything off entirely. She would have expected that some scavengers might have come to feast on the carrion, at least. The lifeless, grey sky set a grim tone to the day, mirroring Yang's face, completely devoid of any humour at all.
Her stomach turned when she spotted the grimm's missing head, impaled upon the sharp, splintered summit of a shattered tree. Most of the bark had turned black has the creature's blood had mostly likely had a good few hours to ooze down the trunk. Other than the grisly spectacle in front of here, there wasn't much else that spoke to her.
She turned away, keeping an eye on her surroundings. Her heart began to race as she considered what could have done this, what would go to such brutality – and if it was nearby, willing to do the same to her. With her size, whatever it was could make a much more detailed picture with her entrails, no doubt. In her paranoid state however, she finally caught a hint of something – it was faint, but the blood seemed to trail on ahead, faint patches of black bile on the shrubbery beneath her feet.
She sighed and armed her gauntlets, Ember Celica, and began to follow the trail. This was just asking for trouble, that much she knew, but at the end of the day it was her job. Ever since she'd come to Beacon those few years back, Yang knew that a mission like this would come, when the world churned up something bigger and badder to face her.
It was times like these that she wished she were back with her team once again. Even with the villains of old out of the picture, the threat of the grimm remained ever-present, and now there was something, or someone, that could literally wipe the floor with an Ursa with ease.
The blood trail thinned out the further she went, before it disappeared entirely. By now, she'd been led up towards the hillside and the treeline had grown sparse. There didn't seem to be any grimm around at all; She wouldn't be surprised if they all avoided this area entirely after that mess.
The ground grew increasingly elevated, and now the lack of vegetation beneath a miserable, cloudy sky made her feel all the more isolated. Of course, a chill settled in as she felt a tiny dot of water later on her arm, followed by a sudden rush of rain, just to make it worse.
She increased her pace, keen eyes catching the most subtle hints of black blood staining the ground at disparate distances. With the rain settling in, Yang was ready to just rush back to the city and stay out of it, and get some advice on what to do. Yet, she couldn't turn back now, the trail was dying out and eventually, surely, she'd find an end to it, at least that's what she hoped.
The weather was starting to grow less hospitable the longer she stayed out, and it was getting dark. "Shit." She grumbled to herself, realizing that she'd been out here in the ass end of nowhere for far longer than she'd expected. She was definitely about to turn back, before a small dwelling came into view, as she peered beyond a small cliff. It was nestled comfortably away, almost out of view from the direction Yang approached it from. A generator sat outside, letting out a very low hum, and there was a faint hint of light shining from inside.
Wary of slipping, Yang found herself a way down, taking tentative steps as she descended down the edge of the small cliff. She spotted an old, run-down motorbike leaning against the building, drawing a grin from her. "Poor thing, somebody's lost their love for you, huh?" A few pipes and cables connected the building to a post just outside, which descended into the ground, giving no hint as to where they left, and an aerial extended from atop the tin roof, which began to rattle as the rain grew heavier.
Desperate to get inside, she knocked on the door loudly, making sure that whoever was there would definitely hear her. "Come on...I'm soaking wet, please answer the door!"
It'd been years since Roman was locked up. She'd done her best that day, so close to dispatching one of the girls that ruined his efforts and continued to tear into all the work he'd put into Vale. If only she'd actually stabbed her right there, instead of waltzing along slowly. If only she'd pounced her and made sure she never got up, this long miserable set of circumstances would never had happened.
After things got bad enough, she exiled herself. No matter how good a fighter she was, she wasn't a leader. Logistics and ideas, sure, she could manage those. But when the rest of the organization's leadership got dealt with, one by one, she wasn't exactly the type to pick it all up, even if she'd come out unscathed, fight after fight. Was it her fault, or had she just chosen the wrong side? It was hard to tell, hindsight was unwilling to give her the answers, for once.
For the rest of her days, Neopolitan decided to spend her life alone in the grimm-infested wilderness. The regret, the guilt over the damage she'd done had settled in long since, but she was fully aware of the irony, aware of the fact that if they'd all succeeded, that regret would be buried beneath mountains of dust and wealth.
It comforted her to see the grimm as her penance. With the largest criminal organization in Vale gone, only the grimm remained as a true threat. It felt fair to make up for what she did by putting her vast ability into keeping them down. In the time she'd spent there, it turned out that they knew many of the human emotions as well. Fear was the biggest one, it was inherent in most other animals after all, and she'd learned how to exploit it.
Neo trailed her way through the hills, dripping in blood. Her old outfit, the regalia of her prime, had been torn to pieces and shredded a dozen times over the course of her stay out here, and she made do with simple clothes she'd collected on her sparse visits back to the city. Jeans, trousers, shirts and vests, nothing that displayed who she was or represented her personality. It had been such a large custom to embrace your individuality all across remnant, but what use did that have when none were around to see you put your soul on a pedestal?
She slammed the door shut behind herself, before rushing into the pitiful compartment that was her bathroom, barely large enough to hold a shower as well as a toilet. She dropped to her knees and emptied her stomach into the toilet bowl. Now that she was inside, the gore of the poor Ursa she'd spread across grimm territory was in her nose and all the more noticeable.
With watering eyes, she stripped down and set herself to the task of washing the bile out of her clothes, not willing to eat until the smell and the filth was gone down the drain. The sink had developed an ugly dark ring around the drain quite a while ago, and she was used to the edges of her nails behind black.
It would have been another silent progression – she used her television and radio sparingly to save on power, and her precious literature was beyond touch until she was entirely clean as well. Her job prevented her from even taking care of herself until it was washed away for the day. That silence however, was broken abruptly, forcing Neo's heart to practically leap out of her chest. There was no mistaking it – a loud banging amidst the rattling roof beneath the rain, the sound of her door knocking.
She stood up slowly, still in her underwear, eyes turning white. The door banged again, and a muffled, feminine voice called out behind it. She'd had visitors before, mostly for supplies, but they'd always been men. This person was new.
Neo stumbled towards the front door, taking small step by small step. For somebody who took down Ursa grimm with ease, this was the hardest thing she'd done in a long time. She reached for the handle, and opened it up.
A tall, proud woman stood in front of her, caped in a mass of brilliant blonde hair, a stark contrast to the miserable weather behind her.
"It's y-you..." She mumbled, eyes wide and white.